The Memory of Bees
by lollypopGuild-UK
Summary: Flash forward to the year 2041. It's 28 years since John married the love of his life. It's 20 years since Sherlock DIDN'T marry the love of his life. The two men are rethinking their lives and their relationship with each other. Will it end in tears or a pot of honey?
1. Chapter 1

**This started out as a one shot, but then it ran away with itself! So now I guess it's a one shot on two pages rather than two chapters**

**The Memory of Bees**

"_Sorry to interrupt your work, William, but there is someone at the front door_."

The old man did not answer straight away. He replaced the honey super in the hive and adjusted the hands-free. "Please tell them to wait. I will be along shortly. And don't call me William."

"_Apologies. I will tell the caller to wait_."

The July sun beat down, scorching the back of his neck, and beads of sweat soaked into his blue chambray collar as he began the long walk back to the house. _Damn visitors, don't they know by now, that I don't want to be disturbed? _ At least it was friend, not foe, as they had knocked on the front door. Dragged away from his beloved bees, he felt a bad mood rising up. Halfway up the gently sloping garden it was a fully formed sulk and he paused customarily at the memorial bench. Many summer evenings they'd spent languishing there under the apple tree, drinking Connemara 16 year malt, not feeling they had to talk, he and the only woman he'd ever really loved. The only woman who'd really understood him; the only woman who hadn't been intimidated by his mind. She'd been ripped from him in the autumn of her life, unfair really, and he'd always said they didn't have enough time together, realising their mutual devotion too late. Now only the name on a bench remained, to testify she was in his arms at the end.

The flaking patio doors creaked open and he slipped off his outdoor shoes and into those infernal Indian slippers that she always complained about, but secretly loved. "_William,_" the soothing, disembodied voice echoed through the house when he took off the hands-free, "_the visitor is oscillating on the doorstep. Should I take action_?"

"I'm almost there, Sarah. Give an old man a chance. I'm not as young as I used to be. But fortunately for you, I'm still pretty." He made his way through the house to the front hall, where mail lay unwanted on the sisal mat.

"_I'm sure I don't know what you mean, William. You are not that old. You are only sixty-five_."

"Never mind. And will you please stop calling me William." He paused before opening the front door.

"_That is the name on your passport. It is also on your social security file and on your death certificate. What would you like me to call you?_"

"You can call me Sir. And behind my back, His Nibs." The old man unbolted the door and saw a familiar young woman standing there. Bright blonde hair in a bun and dark blue eyes. She was still beautiful despite the suit and business-like absence of makeup.

"How about Sherlock Holmes?" she said.

* * *

Sherlock shuffled about the shiny, white kitchen fetching coffee.

"Dad always says you make the worst coffee imaginable."

"He would."

"You're still not talking to each other, are you?"

"You'd know better than me, what goes through your father's mind, Temple."

"Black, two sugars. Thanks." Detective Sergeant Temple Watson took the mug and sniffed the thick liquid suspiciously. "Actually, it's not that bad. We get a lot worse at work. Who-ever makes the coffee gets labelled 'sludge squad'. You should come down, show them how it's done."

"Yes. That and detective work. Present company accepted."

"He misses you, you know."

"If he misses me that much, he can pick up the phone." Sherlock sipped his own coffee, perching on one of the kitchen stools. Temple was the standing sort, so he didn't press her into a chair.

"Oh, my God. You'll never change will you?"

"No one's ever expected me to change. Why should I change for him?"

"Because he loves you. He may not be able to show it lately, but he does. He loves you like a brother."

"God knows my real brothers never did." Sherlock muttered, contemplating the scum on the surface of his drink. "Molly understood. She never asked me to change."

"Molly was special. Special in so many ways, Sherlock, but you can't let her loss send you back to that place. Withdraw. Become _him_ again." Temple involuntarily glanced out to the garden and the apple tree.

"What do you mean, _'him'_?"

"You know, that cantankerous old git."

"While she was there I felt like I could face being around other people. She was my stabiliser. She validated me. Without her I… I don't know what to say to people… I'm afraid I'm hurting someone... I'm… I'm lost."

"_William_," interrupted Sarah, "_You are out of coffee_."

"Thank-you Sarah," said Sherlock, thankful for the change of subject, "would you order some more, please? And while you're at it, do the washing up."

"_I am not your housekeeper, I am your user-interface_," came the soothing voice.

"Honestly," he turned to Temple, "you just can't get the artificial intelligence these days. She's gone wrong twice in a month. Do you know how to program these things? Because I really need to get her to stop calling me WILLIAM!"

There was no point in shouting, she wouldn't take the hint. Sarah was his only concession to modern technology in an otherwise old-fashioned house. He preferred wood, glass and granite to all these new-fangled materials the kids were using nowadays. He preferred a real fire in the grate. He still had one of those phones you actually had to hold in your hand, for heaven's sake. But Sarah, he'd tried out in the store and found he rather liked, then he got used to having her around, and now she was the only thing that stopped him being lonely. Since Molly… died.

_There, I said it. Since Molly died. That's progress for you._

"Where were we?" asked Temple.

"_I am sorry I offended you, William_," Sarah finally caught on, "_what would you like me to call you?"_

"Sherlock is fine. I haven't been called William since I was four. Too many William's for my teacher's liking so she made us all use our middle names. It was either that, or take a number and wait your turn. William, never Will or Billy. Hate Billy."

"_From now on I will call you Sherlock, Sherlock,"_ Sarah soothed.

Temple laughed behind her hand. "It's so funny, Dad is exactly the same with computers."

"Bet he doesn't do this," Sherlock lifted his face and spoke to thin air, "I love you, Sarah!"

There was a long, long pause. And then she said, in the same monotonous, lullaby voice. "_That is a nice thing to say, Sherlock. Unfortunately I cannot reciprocate the feeling because I am only a machine. Perhaps you are feeling hot. Would you like me to adjust the air conditioning?_"

"No, thank-you Sarah. That is all. You can go to sleep now."

"_As you wish."_

Temple drained her coffee and said, "so, is that what you do all day, drink coffee and poke fun at the AI?"

"I have my bees."

"You should call him."

"Did you come here to check up on me for John, or is there something else?"

Temple put her mug down on the counter and fished a small packet of off-white powder out of her pocket, holding it out at arm's length for him to see, a mischievous smile on her face.

"Is that what I think it is?"

* * *

"It's definitely Heroin." Sherlock adjusted the focus on his favourite microscope.

"I know _that_. I need to know where it's from." Temple realised the joke too late and exhaled. "What are you looking for?"

"Fragments of organic matter. Crystallisation of manufacturing solvents."

Temple lazily perused the read-outs from the various types of spectrometer in the study. "So, it's Dad's birthday soon."

"And that means what, in young people language?"

"It means-"

But he rudely interrupted, "it's Turkish. Ninety-nine per-cent certain."

"How can you tell?"

"I've seen this profile before. High selenium soil. Almost certainly from a single estate. Timur Osman."

"Thanks. Only you could have done it." Temple took a paper-thin, transparent tablet out of her satchel and began to text her inspector. "Operation Lucky Alphonse is a go."

"That's nice." Sherlock eyed the tablet.

"I'll get you one. Always preferred old-school. Must get that from you." She finished typing and looked at him appreciatively. "Anyway, I think you're still bitter about getting old. And I think you still blame Dad for getting old."

"I hadn't planned on getting this far, if I'm honest. I always thought I'd die young in a blaze of glory. That's why I never passed up any MI6 missions. Either that or I'd find the formula for eternal youth-"

"Which I'm almost ninety-nine per-cent certain, is not a mixture of nicotine and Irish whiskey."

"You didn't need to come all the way down here. You could have sent a courier. Or you could have gotten your own tecs to take a look at it. I've published a paper on soil variances in narcotics, you know." He looked suspicious under the mop of salt and pepper hair. More salt than pepper now.

"I just wanted to see my uncle Sherlock," she pouted, "why does it have to be a pretext?"

"What have you done?"

"You could have it here, get you socialising again." Temple gathered up her things and prepared to leave him in his study, surrounded by banks of chemicals and unidentifiable equipment, most of which she was sure he'd invented.

"I'm not throwing a party, for John or anyone." He handed her back the evidence bag with the rest of the sample intact.

"But you're not averse to seeing him again soon?"

"Maybe not soon, but eventually."

"Eventually a long time, or eventually a short time?"

"Relatively short. Temple, what are you up to?"

"Nothing."

"I know when I'm being conned or volunteered for something against my will. I will not be opening the door to dozens of your father's incompetent friends come the seventh of July, with no choice but to let them in because of some perceived social compliance. Did I say incompetent? I meant incontinent."

"We'll see," she said, knowingly.

"Temps," he warned, but she remained poker faced. "Damn it. I'll just have to speak to him myself, Sarah, wake up!"

"_Yes, Sherlock, I am here. What can I do for you today?"_

"Call J-"

"No need," Temple cut him off, smugly, "he's waiting in the car."

"What?" Sherlock grasped his messy hair with one fist. "John Watson here?"

"_Who would you like me to call?" _said Sarah.

"Yes," said Temple, "you'd better go and invite him in, because I'm not taking him back to London with me. If you want to get rid of him, you'll have to do it yourself."

"_Sherlock, would you like me to make that call?"_ said Sarah, soothingly.

"You brought him here… and left him in the car, the whole time we were talking?"

"Sherlock," said Temple.

"_Sherlock?"_ said Sarah.

* * *

**There will be another chapter to resolve this cliff hanger soon!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, I know this is a bit weird, but bear with me here!**

**Warning... When I say it's for mature readers, I really mean it. All my fics contain drugs sex and violence. Please don't PM me saying this triggered you or something. Use your common sense.**

* * *

Part 2 - John comes in.

"I had to be sure you were agreeable to this, before I, you know, brought him in."

"I'm not agreeable to this," Sherlock said through his teeth as he helped Temple on with her jacket. He handed her a jar of honey.

"Janine's Bee's," she read, "nice."

"Well, I had to do something with it." He walked her to the door. When he opened it he could see that John had brought her blue Mazda round to the front drive.

"Now," she tiptoed up to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, "time for you two to get over yourselves. I have work to do. And no fisticuffs, Okay."

"I can't promise anything."

And then she was walking back to the car and John was getting out of the car and coming toward the house, two feet and a cane crunching on the gravel.

"Is it real this time?" Sherlock indicated the cane, leaning in the doorway as John approached.

"I need a hip replacement," said John, matter-of-factly, and limped into the cool hallway.

Sherlock held the door open for him and sighed as he closed it. John shuffled around for a while inspecting things, and then settled in his chair by the unlit hearth. A low sun streamed in through the kitchen.

"Look at the state of us." Sherlock sat in his own chair, watching the dust motes drift through the golden beams of light. "We're getting old."

"Speak for yourself." John picked up a paperback from the side table; "_Can Bees Remember_? Did you write this? Is this your latest crackpot theory, that bees have their own folklore handed down through the generations?" Despite his disdain, John was reluctant to show any real emotion, but to Sherlock he'd always been an open book. He could never win a poker game with those tells.

"Working keeps me sane, you know. Are you staying for dinner-"

"It reads like total crap-"

"It's better than your book-"

"My book is about _you_-"

"And it's exactly the kind of commercial-"

"What are we doing, Sherlock? Isn't it time we put away this silly feud?"

"You didn't pick up the phone for a year, John. What was I supposed to think?"

"You walked out of Molly's wake. She deserved better than that, and you couldn't even wait-"

"I wasn't coping well-"

"You were threatening to use-"

"Well, I didn't-"

"-for all intents and purposes, as far as I was concerned, you were walking out of there to go and do something awful to yourself, overdose, something worse-"

"But I didn't. Not that it stops you treating me like I did. Treating me like a child." Sherlock stopped and looked at the floor. "It's not what she would have wanted. I made a promise."

"You don't make promises."

"Anyway, I have a right to be angry with you; I always supported you, I supported your decision to go back to war, I was there for you when times were hard. I thought you'd be there for me too."

"Yes, I'm very grateful for all the support, but it wasn't the same thing; my wife died-"

"So did mine." Sherlock stared him down, eyes a little red, making the blue stand out even more.

"You weren't married to her, Sherlock," John said gently, like he'd forgotten, "she was another man's wife. A man you put in intensive care."

"That's what this is really about isn't it?" Sherlock dismissed his words with a flick of the hand, "you never believed in Molly and me. You just couldn't accept us. That's what hurt the most; you couldn't believe that her love could save a man like me."

"I had no way of knowing it was real, that you weren't just exploiting her, like it was one of your games."

"Exploiting her?" Sherlock was sickened.

"You're a card carrying sociopath-"

"Oh, stop it. We both know that isn't true. Twenty years, John. I couldn't – wouldn't trick someone for twenty years."

"No-one can ever be sure with you!"

"_She_ was sure. If anyone was faking it was you."

"What?" John pulled a face.

"Every social call, every day of work, every conversation we had, you were thinking… you… it just doesn't bear thinking about. You cut me to the quick."

All of a sudden John was looking very contrite. "I'm sorry."

"My loss is just as meaningful as yours." Sherlock looked at him, hurt and pleading for understanding.

"Anyway, she wouldn't have wanted us to fight over this," said John.

_No, she wouldn't. _Molly had always hated fighting. That's why he never told her what he'd done to her husband.

On that night, when she finally came to him and he knew she was his, it was raining heavily and she'd knocked loudly, deliberately, on the big front door. He remembered it like it was yesterday; he'd been reading by the fire and hadn't been expecting any visitors.

There she stood, in a man's waxed coat, dripping, her face lined with tears that had already been washed away. He made sure she had a dry towel and a steaming cup of tea in her hand before he let her talk. At first he was cruel, testing her; _I didn't break up your marriage. What do you want me to do about it? People will talk, you coming straight here._

_Let them, _was all she could say, calmly, slowly. He couldn't scare her off and he knew then that this time it was different. This time she was resigned. She wasn't going back. Not only that, but _he_ was different now. He lived a slower life – no-one could keep up the pace of Baker Street for long – there was no immediate danger, no threat of recriminations that would necessitate he break the law to protect the ones he loved.

So he decided to let her into his life.

They talked late into the night about past loves and losses, until she yawned and closed her eyes and the fire was dying. He lifted her exhausted form from John's chair and carried her upstairs to the guest room. Her lightness shocked him to the core; the last few years had left her stressed and frail.

When he laid her on the bed and turned to go, he was surprised by the pressure of her grasp on his hand.

_Don't go_, she said.

_It wouldn't be right_, he replied.

_That's exactly why I don't want you to go._

And he understood, standing there like an idiot in the dark, turned away but still holding her hand, that this chivalry and respect was exactly why she wanted him. His heart skipped a beat and it was nothing to do with the gunshot wound.

So he had done the thing he told himself he would never do. He turned around, untangled their hands and walked solemnly to the other side of the bed, where he lay down fully clothed. She curled up under his arm, totally spent, and he stroked her damp hair until she fell asleep.

In the morning he silently went about running her a bath. Last night needed no further discussion. He fetched her towels, politely averting his eyes as he handed over some of the clothes Janine had left behind when she emigrated. Molly had raised an eyebrow at this, asking if they were lovers. _No_, he laughed_, just friends. I bought a house from her; I wasn't sleeping with her. _

When she was clean and refreshed and dressed in one of the floral dresses, they had toast and coffee in the kitchen.

_Would you like to_- He asked.

_Solve crimes?_ She said sweetly.

_I was going to say, have dinner. There's a great pub in down in Worthing, it's a bit of a drive but_- And he didn't get it all out because she'd already gotten up from the table and was sitting in his lap and snaking her arms around his neck. And then to his great surprise, they were kissing – a urgent, hungry, untidy, wrong kiss.

_You're still married_, he said, breathing hard, but what they'd done had somehow opened up the floodgates and he couldn't hold back any more. Soon his hands were at the hem of her dress and then they were pushing it up over her hips and then they were pulling her day old french knickers down and perching her on the edge of the breakfast table.

He took her then, toast and cups skittering to the floor.

During dinner they talked about David. He didn't want to talk about David, but it was good for Molly so he listened. As she talked he watched her; the way she moved her hands and picked up her glass, the way she punctuated stories with little nervous snorts. The way she'd twisted her long golden hair into victory waves, as was the fashion at the time. The way she wore pink socks with green high heeled Mary-Janes. The way she wore another woman's dress with poise and dignity.

She was truly beautiful.

She hadn't deserved David. He tried in vain to conceal his distress when she explained that her husband, although not a violent man before the war, had eventually snapped, and thrown her to the floor, savagely kicking her until she bled. She'd crawled to the phone and had a colleague take her to the hospital where the life she'd been nurturing for sixteen weeks ebbed away.

But that was not why she left.

It had been many, many months ago, and she kicked herself now, that she'd stayed so long. She was an educated woman, a doctor; she should have known better. She was strong for others, so why couldn't she stand up for herself? But love was blind, and one-sided love was the blindest of all. She lied to herself that they loved each other; that they should try harder; that it was her fault. She told him that all the victims of domestic violence that she'd examined in her career came back to haunt her with their grey, lifeless faces… _we told you so, we told you, but you all think you're different, you all think you're the one that will change them, and you think it will stop, but it won't._

No, it wasn't the beating or her loss, it was the way David had mocked her, that even after all the treatment there were still complications and she wouldn't be able to have any more babies.

That was the final straw. She'd run to the car, taking nothing but the clothes on her back, and driven through the blinding rain. The only direction she knew, the only direction her heart would take her.

Sherlock listened to all of this with a hot anger simmering just below the surface and tears threatening to spill over. God help anyone who unleashed the full extent of his fury. He hoped that she never knew what he did that night after dinner. If she found out she might not look at him the same way, and he couldn't bear that. All she knew is that he'd left her sleeping at the cottage and traveled to London through the night. He'd gone to David's suburban semi and given him the beating of his life. He wore steel toe-capped boots and clothes that he didn't mind burning afterwards. When David answered the door he put a foot in the gap to stop him slamming it, but he needn't have. It was like David knew he was coming and didn't try to defend himself when Sherlock broke his nose with a precise right hook. Like it was the natural order of things, just as night follows day. Molly leaves and then Sherlock comes to kick the ever-loving shit out of you.

In the papers that week, they said that David had been kicked and stamped on until he barely clung to life. It also said they didn't have a lead.

If Molly saw the papers, she never said anything, and they never spoke of David again. Sherlock felt no remorse for what he'd done, but then, he never had.

After that, they just assumed she would stay. She walked away from her marriage, her home and her job and never went back. She didn't speak much after that first night. It was like she was just tired of life, and Sherlock cursed the monster that made her like that. Dear, sweet Molly, with her disappearing and re-appearing lipstick, so full of life. Now she carried the guilt that she hadn't been able to protect her child, and somehow in her head it was always a girl, a nameless girl, so they bought an apple tree and planted it in the garden. He was beginning to learn, by proxy, that the pain would never go away.

So he made sure he did something every day to please her. He made love to her in the afternoons. He took her shopping for clothes. He took her to the opera and the ballet. He took her to formal balls and introduced her, not as his girlfriend, but by her name. She was successful in her own right; she didn't need to be an addendum to someone else. Let people make up their own minds about their relationship.

He didn't make any demands and he just let her be herself, which was exactly what she needed. All he asked of her was that she tolerate his occasional trips away, and that she didn't ask, under _any _circumstances, what he did in the war.

All she asked in return was that there would be no firearms or narcotics in the house.

They agreed that they were both rubbish cooks, but as they settled into a routine, he found he'd come to rather anticipate dinner. Food and sex had never been very far up his list of priorities, but now he actually quite enjoyed all the eating and fucking, and he put on a stone in six months.

Gradually, over the course of days and weeks, she came back to life. Eventually she ventured out of the house, out of his protective presence and got herself a job at the children's hospice.

One day when she was making dinner, a simple dish of spaghetti and garlic and oil, and she was humming a Puccini aria, he realised that she was happy.

_I know you have to make sacrifices to be with me, Molly_, he said as they ate.

But she interrupted what he wanted to explain – _It's not a sacrifice. I've always accepted that you're going to go missing for days and I can't ask questions. But whatever happens, I get to have you._

They'd lived like that for nineteen years. He with his bees and his lectures and she with her little projects, but they always came together at the end of the day, reading under the apple tree or beside the fire when it was cold. Temple visited often and they watched her grow up, and she was the closest thing they had to a child of their own, in an odd kind of way. A different kind of adventure to the ones he was used to, but no less demanding. John always wanted her to be a doctor, but it was inevitable that she would rebel.

Then, one day, Molly took to her bed feeling unwell and never got better.

They got a diagnosis. It was rare. It was inoperable. It was terminal.

_It's Okay, you don't have to be strong,_ she'd said, _I know what's going to happen to me; I'm a doctor._

In a way it would have been better if it was sudden. Then he wouldn't have had to watch the inevitable decay and she wouldn't have had to listen to him crying bitterly in the night at the unfairness of it all. When he was around her, he put a brave face on things. He got a nurse; he was always a coward when it came to bodily things and he selfishly only wanted the best of her. The thought that she might not be there forever was abominable to him; through her he'd learned to love after all, learned that love was a series of decisions. Without her the world would become once again that cold unforgiving place that had chewed him up and spat him out. In his mind a world without Molly was not just improbable; it was impossible.

In the end she was on a lot of morphine. Ironic really. She'd slipped away without warning one night, nestled into his underarm, just like on that first night all those years ago. And he'd kissed goodbye the woman who'd made his life so beautiful, who'd saved his life so many times and in so many ways, and who was the strongest person he'd ever met, though she never knew it.

Much later, when he was going through some of her things, he found a letter unsent, or maybe it was leaf from her diary, which she'd obviously never meant for him to see.

_Who knew Sherlock Holmes was such a considerate lover? It turns out he's not so inexperienced after all. That first day together was like a watershed. I think he's been saving up the emotion for a long time. It wasn't that he was afraid he couldn't love; he was just afraid he'd love too much. Can you believe he actually said 'may I'? 'May I fuck you, Molly Hooper?' No man has ever said that. I used to feel guilty for all the time I wasted, worshipping his shadow back then. I thought for years that I'd missed the boat. But we hadn't missed the boat; we were just early for this._

"So, it's my birthday soon." John's voice snapped him out his daydream.

_Here we go_, thought Sherlock.

"The big Seven-oh."

Sherlock nodded, disinterested.

"I'm having a few people round. You're invited. It'll be nice to do something sociable. It's been lonely since Temps moved out… I've been lonely."

Sherlock pressed his lips together thoughtfully before speaking. _Oh, what the hell_. "You… you could have it here if you like."

"Really? Oh, no, you don't have to do that-"

"I insist-"

"Really, I can't impose upon you like that-"

"Really, I insist-"

"Well I'm not even sure if I'm actually going to go through with it yet. I'm not sure I want all the hassle, what with the staying out late and my hip and everything."

"You wouldn't need to stay out late, I have a spare room-" and then Sherlock stopped and said, "that daughter of yours is getting awfully sneaky."

"Yes, she told me she needed my medical opinion on something, and then bundled me into the bloody car. The youth of today, no respect."

"Well what do you expect when you name her after a tube station?"

"She did get us talking again."

"If I had to be completely honest," Sherlock said cautiously, "I did miss you."

"I missed you too." John smiled in a charming and uncomplicated way.

"You know, that spare room is empty all the time. And there's nothing tying you to London anymore."

"I'll think about it. You are, after all, practically impossible to live with."

"It'd be like old times again."

"Only without the bullet dodging."

"I can't promise that," Sherlock smirked.

"Vatican Cameos!" yelled John and they laughed together.

When their mirth had subsided and John had sobered up a bit he said, "I'm sorry about Molly."

"It's Okay. It really is."

"No, I didn't say it when it counted, so I'm saying it now. I'm deeply, deeply sorry about Molly. Not in the way you're sorry about losing a friend; she was ever so much more than that. More than I'll ever understand."

_Were his tears from the laughter, or did he finally get it? _Sherlock couldn't look at him anymore so he focussed on the necklace still hanging on the corner of the mantel mirror. Silver and turquoise that she'd gotten in Mexico. She'd hung it there the day she first fell ill and he hadn't the heart to remove it. As long as it was there, it was like she'd just stepped out of the room, leaving him in a state of perpetual hope. "All lives end," he said thoughtfully, "all hearts are broken."

"I'm glad she got what she always wanted," said John, wiping his eye with the back of his hand.

"Would you write about her, John. In your book, I mean. In my biography."

"I'll try to do her justice."

"You can't have a book about the great Sherlock Holmes without the person who mattered the most."

John stayed for dinner and afterwards Sherlock drove him to the station. They hugged a great big, thumping-on-the-back bear hug, and said their goodbyes. But it wasn't for long because they held the 70th birthday party in the cottage on the Sussex downs and afterwards John gave up and moved in, and it was like old times again. Only without the bullet dodging.

Eventually John would die in his sleep aged 96, with Sherlock not long after at 92. Temple always joked, in her lectures on their legendary detective work, that old soldiers never die, they simply fade away. And decades later, when Temple Watson was gone, there was no-one left to remember them but the bees.


End file.
